CHAPTER 120

Matthew Ellison and Denny Spitters

Matthew Ellison is president and church missions coach at sixteen:fifteen. In 1993 he began serving at Calvary of Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he graduated from their School of Ministry. He worked as the missions pastor at Calvary for nine years, developing and launching a strategic church-wide missions ministry. Now, he serves local churches by coaching them and helping them to discover and use their unique gifts in partnership with others to make Christ known.

Denny Spitters is a church and agency coach at sixteen:fifteen. He has served in many church staff roles, directed a parachurch ministry, and helped plant several churches. He previously served as vice president of church partnerships at Pioneers for the past 12 years. He has coauthored When everything Is Missions and Conversations on When everything Is Missions with Matthew Ellison.

On the day of His rising, Jesus said to His gathered followers: “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you” (John 20:21 NASB). From Jesus’s words here and the other times He commissioned God’s people, it is easy to see why some are convinced that every believer is sent, and therefore, every Christian is a missionary.

All Followers Are Sent

Jesus’s words in John 20 make it clear that He sends every believer in the same way that the Father sent Him. Christ’s commission in Matthew 28:18–20 shows that every follower of Christ is a disciple who is empowered to be part of the work to make disciples of all peoples.

In Matthew 28, Jesus used the Greek word for “disciple” as a verb. That verb must have a direct object to make sense. Jesus essentially said to disciple all peoples. He did not say to disciple other people, or to disciple your family, or to disciple some people in your community, or disciple the people like you. He said to disciple “all nations.” By that, He meant all peoples, every ethnolinguistic group on earth.

We can say with confidence that every disciple is summoned to be “on mission” with God for the proclamation of the gospel to all peoples. But does this mandate make every Christian a missionary? Are missionaries, like pastors and elders, set apart in a particular way?

What Distinguishes a Missionary?

Even though evangelism is central to making disciples, and making disciples is at the core of our commission to make disciples in every people, missions is not the same as evangelism. Announcing that all Christians are missionaries, or potential missionaries, is usually said with good intentions in order to give everyone a sense of purpose and motivation. But offering such encouragement comes with a cost. Speaking in this way deprives us of language to describe people who are uniquely set apart to pioneer the gospel across cultural boundaries.

Is every church member a missionary? Justin Long distinguishes the two:

“We say “every member a missionary” but we don’t actually mean it,” he says. What we really mean is this:

“every member a witness” (ready to give testimony to what God has done in your life)
“every member an evangelist” (ready to share the Good News of salvation)
“every member a disciple maker” (who works deeply with people to help them grow in their obedience to Jesus).

But “missionary” means (a) sent (b) across a boundary to where the gospel is not (c) to see a church planted (not just converts made) that (d) can reach everyone in that place without the missionary being present (through the work of witnesses, evangelists, pastors, etc.).¹

Biblical Vocabulary for Missionary

The word “apostle” is used more than eighty times in the New Testament. “Apostle” simply means someone who is sent to transmit a message. The New Testament also uses the term in a narrower way, referring to the inner circle of Christ’s disciples, including Paul who was given the title by Jesus Himself.

In mission circles today, we often use the term as it is used in Ephesians 4:11–13, as one of the roles of those who equip God’s people to do God’s work. Apostles are given the role of advancing the gospel where it is not yet known. They may also have a unique, entrepreneurial role in pioneering the leading edge of gospel revelation, as Paul described:

I aspired to preach the gospel, not where Christ was already named . . . but as it is written, “They who had no news of Him shall see, and they who have not heard shall understand.” (Rom 15:20–21 NASB)

A missionary, like an apostle, may be seen as an ambassador sent on a mission for the king. This does not suggest a special rank but a unique role. Apostolic missionaries are not superstar Christians, but they are called and gifted by God and affirmed by the local church to cross cultural barriers to bring the message of the gospel and make disciples of every people on the planet.

In the same way a teaching elder or pastor needs certain God-given gifts and qualifications to do the work of teaching or pastoring, an apostolic missionary needs to work with certain skills and God-given abilities. John encouraged the support of such workers:

You will do well to send them on their journey in a manner worthy of God. For they have gone out for the sake of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support people like these, that we may be fellow workers for the truth. (3 John 6–8 NASB)

Although this passage “sets apart” these apostolic missionaries for specific service, it clearly commends participation in the same mission by all followers of Christ as “fellow workers for the truth.” Everyone has a part to play. God’s mission does not belong solely to missionaries.

RETURN TO LESSON 15: World Christian Discipleship

Notes

1. Justin D. Long, “Stop Trying to Persuade Everyone to Be a Missionary,” JustinLong, justinlong.org/stop-persuading.php, quoted from Denny Spitters and Matthew Ellison, When Everything Is Missions (Pioneers-USA; Sixteen:Fifteen, 2017).